Fresh off setting the record for longevity with one team, and bidding farewell to basketball, Dirk Nowitzki turns 41 years old today.
He amassed 31,560 points in his incredible career, the sixth-most ever, and he retires ninth in made field goals, 11th in 3s, sixth in free throws, and sixth in wins. He is, unquestionably, one of the greatest players in NBA history, and he’s on the shortlist of best offensive players ever and most unguardable non-centers the league has ever seen.
We know this now because we’ve been told all of these things so many times. That holds true especially for people my own age, born in the mid-1980s or later, because most of us have no memory of Dirk’s early years in the league, and we certainly have no concept of what basketball was like before he came along, at least outside of what YouTube has to offer us in the form of short highlights.
Thankfully, though, some old NBA footage has survived, and much can be gleaned from it. Take this video the NBA shared the other day, which shows clips of every single Finals MVP of the last 50 years. Look how different the league was in the ’60s and ’70s. It was almost unrecognizable even in the ’90s. The NBA we know and love today is wide-open. There’s usually never more than three or four bodies in the paint at any given time. Everyone shoots 3s.
We can thank Dirk for all of that.
In the last few years, the world has come to openly love Dirk because of his impact on the game and for his loyalty to Dallas and the franchise. Doc Rivers stops a game and tells the fans to thank Dirk, and he gets a moving standing ovation. Fans in Boston, Indianapolis, Charlotte, and Brooklyn didn’t sit down while he was on the floor. And, on the last night of the season — and in San Antonio, no less — fans were openly cheering for Nowitzki even in a game the Spurs needed to win in order to avoid the eighth seed.
We all love Dirk. He is a legend. But an entire generation of NBA fans only knows him as the guy who won the title in 2011 and then got a little older with each passing year. Thousands and thousands of people have probably never seen a Dirk highlight from when he was in his 20s.
That’s about to change. This is a story — or, really, a series of gifs — about how Dirk Nowitzki changed the NBA, and how much of a nightmare he must have been for the entire NBA for more than two decades. This isn’t a recap of his 30,000th point or even his Finals MVP-winning performance. No, this is about all that came before it, when he’d melt your brain 82 nights per season, inexplicably almost completely outside the national spotlight. Not many full games of Dirk’s younger years exist online, but these clips, together, are meant to give you an idea of what it was like to watch Prime Dirk destroy the NBA for the entire 2000s.
When Nowitzki first got to the league, he played small forward and was known primarily for his ability to shoot the 3-ball. Even in the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season, when teams played only 50 games, Dirk made history. He attempted 68 3-pointers that season, which at the time was the sixth-most 3s ever attempted by a 7-footer in a season. The next season, however, he changed basketball forever. In 1999-2000, Nowitzki hoisted 306 3-pointers, more than double the previous record by a 7-footer. What’s more, he made more 3s (116) than any other 7-footer had ever even attempted, outside of Arvydas Sabonis during the 1996-97 season (132), when the 3-point line was moved closer to the basket.
When you’re that prolific from deep, opponents are bound to respect the shot. As opposing defenders gradually began to step out closer and closer to Dirk — and, more importantly, as Don Nelson moved him to power forward and still gave him the freedom to operate on the perimeter — he was able to begin exploiting the quickness advantage. Yes, as hard as it is to believe that once upon a time Dirk was one of the most terrifyingly athletic 7-footers in the NBA, it really was true. He was a monster.
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And then there’s this play, from the 2003-04 season, when he only needs two dribbles to get from the top of the arc to the rim, from a dead stop.
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Indeed, Nowitzki could throw it down. He dunked at least 35 times a year from the 2000-01 season through 2004-05. (Basketball-Reference does not have dunk totals from before.) During those years, well over half his field goal attempts were jumpers from the mid-range or 3-point line, so even a dunk every other game was still pretty good volume for the big man.
He also possessed rare touch and skill around the rim for a big man, showing off smooth finger rolls in the years before those drives ended instead in off-balance — yet still unguardable — fadeaways. In fact, the evolution of his dribble-drive game is shown pretty nicely here. (The third play, in particular, is extraordinary.) In the early days, Dirk could simply blow by an overmatched opposing forward. From 2001-05, in Nellie’s futuristic pace-and-space offense, he shot 66 percent from inside of 3 feet.
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As time went on, he still maintained his quick burst but also developed a reliable pull-up game. If the defender was too close, he’d cruise by them. If he backed off fearing the drive, Nowitzki could pull up for a comfortable 17-footer.
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In his later, but more surgical years, Nowitzki might not have had the top-end speed to get all the way to the rim, but he could get to his precise spot and make a shot over a good contest anyway. He’d do it from 10 feet like many of the premier iso guards we’ve watched for decades, but later still in his career he stretched his range all the way out to the elbow and beyond.
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In his prime, he was a 7-footer who could shoot 3s, drive the lane, and score in isolation in the mid-range. He was the first unicorn.
His game itself was revolutionary, but some of the ways he was deployed in some extreme circumstances would fit right in today; at the time, though, they must have been mind-bending. For example, every now and again he’d handle the ball while a smaller player would set the screen for him.
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In the first play, the Mavericks used Steve Nash as the screener to force his man to switch on to Dirk. That is obviously a hopeless situation for the defense. This is what teams like Cleveland (during the LeBron-Kyrie years) and Golden State (with KD and Steph) use in the Finals to create favorable matchups. Modern teams are doing this at the highest level of basketball we’ve seen in years. Dallas was doing this, casually, in the early 2000s. The alternative, if the defense didn’t want to switch a small on Dirk, was to send the 4-man in pursuit — another hopeless cause.
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Dirk with the ball in his hands on the perimeter usually meant bad things for the opponent. He’d pull up and shoot from anywhere when he was feeling himself, often mixing in this little trot or hitch step before taking the shot.
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His range was limitless and his height meant he could get off his shot almost whenever he wanted, regardless of proximity of his defender (or of his own balance).
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The first clip of this trio was from late in the game when the Mavs were dribbling out the clock. The following two are from very late in the shot clock. Again, these are extreme situations. At the time, in that era of the NBA, that was really the only time a player like Dirk would be given free rein to do literally whatever he wanted, even for a player as fundamentally game-breaking as he was. (I shudder to imagine how he would be used if he came along today. A 7-footer with limitless range who can pull up from anywhere on the floor and drive the lane?)
One last thing: He could bring the ball up the floor. And if you didn’t pick him up near half court, he’d drop a J on you. His trailing 3 became a signature shot later in his career, but earlier on he didn’t need a pass to get his shot off.
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There had never been a player like Dirk before Dirk. Not even close. And, to be honest, there haven’t been many since. Taller stretch bigs like Kristaps Porzingis have come close, and Kevin Durant has applied elements of Dirk’s game to his own in his own unbelievable career. Dirk’s success has given the green light not only to Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokic to handle the ball all they want, but also to their teams to draft them to begin with. As for 3s, Dirk made 1,982 of them. Channing Frye sits second place on that list among 7-footers, with 1,049. No other 7-footer has made more than 627. Dirk has more than three times the made 3s of third place.
Young folks have been told over and over that Dirk redefined a position and singlehandedly ushered the NBA into a new era of basketball. These were some examples to show how he changed the game forever.
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